Partee v. Partee

• Decision Date: 16 April 1917
• Docket Number: 19019
• Citation: 74 So. 827,114 Miss. 198
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: PARTEE v. PARTEE

74 So. 827

114 Miss. 198

PARTEE v. PARTEE

No. 19019

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 16, 1917

Division B

APPEAL from the chancery court of Quitman county, HON. J. A. MAY Chancellor.

Suit by C. W. Partee, Sr., against Mrs. Mattie E. Partee. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment reversed in part and affirmed in part and cause dismissed.

P. H Lowrey, for appellant.

John Waddell, for appellee.

OPINION

ETHRIDGE, J.

In the year 1908 the appellant and appellee were husband and wife, and Mrs. Mattie E. Partee, the appellant, and her four children were tenants in common of certain lands in Quitman county, Miss., which they had inherited from one Cole, the former husband of Mrs. Partee, and Mrs. Partee was desirous of selling the timber growing upon said land. In May and June of the year 1908 Mrs. Partee was in Centralia, Ill., where she and her former husband had formerly lived, and while there Mr. Partee, the husband and complainant in the present suit, approached Barney & Hines, real estate dealers of Memphis, Tenn., with the proposition of selling the timber on the lands of his wife and his wife's children. He executed an option in his own name which reads as follows:

"Confirming our conversation, I hereby give you option for fifteen days from this date to purchase the timber on sections 6 and 7 and one hundred and sixty acres in the southern half of section 8, township 8, range 10 west, Quitman county, Miss., at a price of thirty-five hundred ($ 3500) dollars on terms of two thousand ($ 2,000) dollars each, balance in two equal notes, one and two years each. bearing interest at the rate of six per cent., with a time limit of removal of timber of five years from this date, together with right of way over, through, and across said land for cutting down and removing said timber therefrom."

On the day prior to the execution of this option Mr. Partee wrote to his wife that Barney & Hines desired an option for fifteen days and stated the terms that they proposed of two thousand dollars cash and one thousand and five hundred dollars in two annual promissory notes bearing six per cent., and that he expected to take such action as he thought best the following day, subject to her approval, in closing or making the deal. On June 6th he again wrote Mrs. Partee a letter in which he advised her not to sign any papers until she saw him with reference to this matter, as he desired to have certain provisions put in the contract. Mrs. Partee returned home after the expiration of the fifteen days embodied in the option given by Mr. Partee and in connection with her husband took up with Barney & Hines the closing of this matter. Finally they called up the attorneys of Barney & Hines and insisted that, if the matter was going to be closed up, that they send the contract at once with five hundred dollars as a guaranty of good faith, which they contended that Barney &amp Hines agreed to do over the phone. The following day a contract was sent, but no check or money for signature, and, the letter not containing a check, they decided that Barney & Hines was delaying with the idea of finding a customer who would buy, but were not intending to carry out their agreement themselves, and then proceeded to make a deal with another party who bought the timber for the sum of three thousand and five hundred...